The line between "news" and "non-news" is not always clear. Numerous nishikie were published in a timely manner to show in images, if not also narrate in text, something that was "new" at the time.

Some of the more interesting quasi news nishikie are listed here. They are mostly series that were intended to instruct or inform while entertaining. Some were newspaper supplements. Others were sold at print and book shops.

Kinsei jinsei shi, a supplement rather than a news-related nishikie, is introduced here, partly because it figures in the history of news nishikie and related newspapers, but also because the prints in this series featured personalities who were either in the new or recently in the news at the time they were published.

A few other non-news nishikie series are introduced here, mostly because some prints in the series tie-in with the rise and fall of news nishikie.

The Kinsei jinbutsu shi consists of a series of twenty nishikie that Yoshitoshi drew as supplements for the daily Yamato shinbun. The supplements were published once a month, and in addition to their number in the series, they bore the issue number and date of the paper they were distributed with. See below for all a list of all the prints in the series, with their numbers, dates, and titles.

The Kinsei jinbutsu shi prints are not news nishikie. They differ in a number of ways from the Tonichi and Hochi nishikie and their Osaka counterparts. They were planned from the start as newspaper supplements and were published regularly. They did not focus on news events but on a broad spectrum of influential early Meiji male and female news makers, most deceased, a few still living. And while news nishikie were sold like other woodblock prints and books, the supplements were distributed to readers who subscribed to the paper by the month. (Tsuchiya 1995:24)

The Kinsei jinbutsu shi supplements also differ from news nishikie in that, whereas news nishikie featured on-scene illustrations and written accounts of an incident that had been reported in the news, the supplements presented graphic portraits and narrative profiles of famous people.

The lives of a some of the people chosen for the series were fraught with conflict and a few ended in violence. Some supplements show or hint at the trauma. Most, though, capture tragic heroes in moments of quietude.

Who chose the personalities to feature in the series? Jono? Nishida? Or Yoshitoshi himself?

The series reflects a certain nostalgia for recent times, barely a decade or two earlier, when Japan was not as stable as it had become by the late 1880s. As both witnesses and participants, Jono and Yoshitoshi were undoubtedly keen observers of the feats and failures of the men and women who figured in the uncertainties and changes.

As an analogy, imagine a writer like Ishihara Shintaro founding a newspaper, and commissioning a drawer like Yokoo Tadanori to produce a series of caricatures of historical figures both men respected for their thoughts and actions. An odd couple, you might say, but apart from that, who would they choose? Nogi Maresuke and Mishima Yukio? Matsui Sumako and Abe Sada? How would Yoshitoshi have depicted such personalities in a latter-day version of Kinsei jinbutsu shi?